The National Interest articles from September 2005

The National Interest archives from September 2005

Defining victory.(Iraq war)
September 22, 2005... AMERICA HAS no choice but to succeed in Iraq. The country's collapse could fuel chaos in the Middle East; a terrorist base there could support new attacks in America, in the region, in Europe and worldwide. The consequences of defeat in Iraq...

Intelligence reform.(intelligence agencies)
September 22, 2005... Not long ago, during one of the many terrorism alerts we have endured in Washington, it was made clear that even on matters related to the terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland, our intelligence agencies still refuse to share information. Two...

Realism is right.(Iraq war)
September 22, 2005... Last year, in delivering a lecture on the centenary of Hans Morgenthau's birth at the BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt, I addressed the question of what position Morgenthau would have taken on the Iraq War. (The full text is available at...

Debating the Red Cross.(International Committee of the Red Cross)
September 22, 2005... In "Double-Red-Crossed" (Spring 2005), Lee A. Casey and David B. Rivkin, Jr. challenge the effectiveness of the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), particularly in relation to the United States. First, in relation...

The case for "integration".(United States foreign policy)
September 22, 2005... IN 2005 we saw the 101st anniversary of the birth, and the death, of George Kennan, widely acknowledged as the principal architect of containment, the doctrine that guided U.S. foreign policy for roughly forty years of the Cold War....

Finding the lost peace.(Palestine, Israel)
September 22, 2005... IN CONCLUDING my book last year, I suggested that we might find the missing peace when Yasir Arafat passed from the scene and it became possible to get beyond the dysfunction he cultivated. Little did I suspect he would die before the end of...

Blending democracy: the generational project in the Middle East.
September 22, 2005... MAY 16 marked a major watershed in Kuwait's political history. By a margin of 35 to 23, that country's Assembly extended the franchise to women, making it the fourth Gulf country to do so. Yet the impetus for the legislation did not stem from...

In the wake of war: getting serious about nation-building.(Iraq)
September 22, 2005... EARLIER THIS summer, Bagdhad's mayor, Alaa Mahmoud al-Timimi, threatened to resign over shortfalls in funding for infrastructure rehabilitation, especially for the city's unreliable water supply. Recent rebuilding efforts were set back when...

The European Union is dead.
September 22, 2005... IN 1865, Viscount Palmerston, prime minister of England, lay dying. As is only too human, the great man desperately rejected the diagnosis. When Palmerston's physician broke the news to the elderly statesman that he was about to expire, he...

The business of insurgency: the expansion of Iraq's shadow economy.(organized crime)
September 22, 2005... MEDIA ATTENTION on the insurgency in Iraq has tended to focus on dramatic incidents or horrific acts of violence. At the same time, policymakers in the United States and other coalition countries have often viewed the insurgency in largely...

Paradigm lost: the demise of "weak China".
September 22, 2005... IN THE heady days of the 1990s, "globalization" was a phenomenon requiring "others" to marketize and eventually democratize. Unfortunately, less time was spent considering how globalization, and China's multi-dimensional entry into the world...

Assessing the China threat.
September 22, 2005... AFTER A period of calm in U.S.-Chinese relations, in which U.S. China policy stressed economic engagement, cooperation against terrorism and stability in the Taiwan Strait, attention has returned to the military and economic rise of China and...

China's rise, Asia's dilemma.
September 22, 2005... FOR THE past decade, reaping the benefits of the dynamic Chinese economy has dominated Asia's China strategies. This is hardly surprising. While China's real GDP in 2004 was well below the GDPs of the United States and Japan, if one uses...

Kings of the east: American evangelicals and U.S. China policy.
September 22, 2005... THE RECENT passage of China's anti-secession law has raised fears in Washington and Taipei that Beijing may use the legislation to declare war on Taiwan. For some fundamentalist Christians, this is just a further sign of the End Times....

The new great game.(China, Central Asia)
September 22, 2005... OF ALL the regional powers vying for influence in Central Asia, China is likely to have the most lasting and broad impact. Geographical proximity and security and economic interests all play a factor in the region becoming a top strategic...

Iranian beliefs and realities.
September 22, 2005... THE SPINES of Western leaders shivered following the election of Tehran's mayor, hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as Iran's next president. And for good reason. Ahmadinejad's resume and rhetoric are not pretty. He was a member of the ideological...

Seoul searching: ending the U.S.-Korean alliance.
September 22, 2005... WHY SHOULD the United States maintain troops in the Republic of Korea (ROK)? What American interests are being served by the alliance? Officials in both capitals maintain that the alliance remains as relevant as ever. The two governments insist...

Understanding Saddam.(Saddam Hussein)
September 22, 2005... THE RECENT reports of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Iraq Survey Group, and the Presidential WMD Commission regarding intelligence and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq offer many useful insights into Iraq's weapons programs and...

Preventing the unthinkable.(Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe)(Book Review)
September 22, 2005... Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (New York: Times/Henry Holt, 2004), 263 pp., $24. IT IS BECOMING common for government officials, members of Congress, national security commentators and the media in...

Killing to make a killing.(Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terrorism)(Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism)(Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism)(Book Review)
September 22, 2005... Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Columbia University, 2005), 280 pp., $24.95. Timothy Naftali, Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism (New York: Basic, 2005), 415 pp., $26. ...

Facing down Iran.(Tehran Rising: Iran's Challenge to the United States )(Book Review)
September 22, 2005... Ilan I. Berman, Tehran Rising: Iran's Challenge to the United States (Lenham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 224 pp., $24.95. THIS CONCISE book represents a well-integrated compilation of Ilan Berman's writings on Iran, supplemented with...

A tale of three cities.(Kabul, Beirut, Cairo)
September 22, 2005... THE WORLD watches as resident Bush relentlessly promotes democracy in the turbulent Middle East and Central Asia. Criticisms vary: Democracy is a confection of the West; Islam is in fundamental conflict with democracy; and most repugnant (and...